Mountain neighbourhood begins life without door-to-door mail
'I'm glad it's not on my lawn,' says Mountain resident
After sit-in protests, stop-work orders, a proposed bylaw that was rejected by the courts and the arrest of a 69-year-old retiree, all was quiet on Brucedale Avenue Monday.
Yes, there were grumbling residents in the Mountain neighbourhood, made up mostly of bungalows and inhabited mostly — according to residents' own categorization — by old people.
Around the neighbourhood, residents were curiously checking out Canada Post's new super mailboxes around noon Monday, the first day they were told door-to-door delivery would cease to exist.
As Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton put it: "They will join the 30,000 other Hamilton households that have been receiving mail in a community mailbox for decades."
Monday, Jack Berkeley was outside a neighbour's house, guarding the concrete footing meant for one of the last super mailboxes to be installed in the neighbourhood. It's the same location where Rick Davidson was arrested on Thursday and charged with mischief for attempting to block contractors from installing the unit.
"This is an old area," Berkeley, 69, said of his neighbourhood. He pointed to several neighbours who are well into their retirement years as examples of people who are "at risk" when they head down their front steps, let alone down the street to their community mailbox.
36,000 homes begin life without door-to-door mail service
Berkeley was able to stop a triple mailbox from going on his property on Brucedale, but it sent Canada Post contractors across the street to a neighbour's property — to the place where he was now standing guard.
Canada Post said Monday's "transition date" marks the shift from door-to-door for 36,000 Hamilton Mountain residents.
But not all residents will lose the doorstep service.
Evelyn Schwaom, 90, has been living in the neighbourhood for 65 years. She believes she's one of the last people to originally buy into the survey, and said Canada Post will deliver her mail once a week on Wednesdays.
Her home is adjacent to a superbox, near Crocket Street, but the recent stroke victim shared her concerns with Canada Post, who offered the weekly door-to-door service to compensate.
Her concern now turns to what will her front yard look like when people park to pick up their own mail, a neighbourhood already burdened by free parking hunters visiting the nearby Juravinski Hospital.
"We'll just have to wait and see," Schwaom said.
'It's going to save us money'
Down the street, Joe Poole, 75, isn't concerned.
"I don't have a problem with it," Poole said of the new super mailboxes. "It's going to save us money in the long run."
Ask him if he'd like one on his lawn, and there's a small smile out of the corner of his mount.
"I'm glad it's not on my lawn," Poole said.
Other residents, like Andy Herd, are more vocal about mailboxes.
"The feds just jammed it down our throat," Herd said of the mailboxes. "It's different if it's a brand new neighbourhood."
He said he mailed Canada Post early on about his concerns.
"I said what about the winter tme, the old people the ice on the sidewalks." said the 18-year resident of the neighbourhood.
"I just got a generic letter (back)," Herd said. "I think they threw it in the garbage."